My own voyages into the world of Solo RPGs.

Stat It: Spies Glazing Over

Alright, by now, most of you have noticed a trend these past few weeks. Well, for those who caught on, congrats. I was doing a marathon of all the Genesis of Legends associated games, including the exporting of Night Witches to Canada. We’re wrapping it on the RPG that gave me the inspiration to do this marathon in the first place: Spark.

I’ve mentioned it before during my Stat It on the game, so if you need some information regarding the game, click there. So, as you might have expected, I’m making this my Cold War RPG. Probably the least historically accurate game I’m gonna play. And that’s saying something when I played a game about Japanese warships being cute girls. They actually put research into the ships.

Alright, I’m gonna start by statting up my character. First off, I’ll need a concept… I’m gonna focus on one of the agendas that I set up before. In this case, Sherry Corporation’s “Create a community in a small town.” So I’m gonna have him be just a guy who is heading this creation. A former businessman… Um… His name is… George?

Anyways, the beliefs for this are a little briefer than the beliefs in the previous Stat It. Therefore, I’ll give him one from the list, and try to come up with other beliefs.

Love is better than anger

Keeping secrets sucks

The Truth will set you free

Next step is to assign attribute points. I have seven attribute points to add to my stats, which I showed in the Stat It post. I see him having high Heart and High Mind, but low Body and Medium Spark.

Body: D4 (0)

Mind: D10 (3)

Heart: D10 (3)

Spark: D6 (1)

Next up are talents. They add some points to the result if they apply. The deeper the talent, the higher the points. Like attributes, I have seven to spend.

Broad Talents

Persuasion

Business

Common Talents

Intimidation

Deception

Accounting

Deep Talents

Dirty Money

Singing Japanese Karaoke

Now, Spark is a game meant to be played with multiple people, much like Posthuman Pathways. And this is especially true with the backstory questions, in which you’re asked questions to flesh out the backstory, more importantly relations with other PCs. So this will lead me to create more PCs. I already have a second in mind.

A ninja working on his own, away from other factions to see if he can bring about peace between two fueding Ninja Worlds. His name is Tsubasamaru. His beliefs are as follows:

Violence breeds violence

Knowing too much shouldn’t justify someone’s death

Multiversal Travel is a mistake

That’d serve as a nice contrast to George. Next, stats.

Body: D12 (4)

Mind: D6 (1)

Heart: D6 (1)

Spark: D6 (1)

And Talents.

Broad Talents

Athletics

Melee

Common Talents

Stealth

Acrobatics

Swords

Deep Talents

Ninja Art Of Flying

Shurikens

And now we just need one more character before we go onto the final phases of the creation. A third PC created by our own Covetous Poet. Now, I gotta admit, UNE would work better for creating concepts, but I figure I’ll figure something out with Covetous Poet. If not, I’ll reveal my trump card.

Attitude: Avaricious

Social: Droll

Character: Resourceful

Alright, I already have an idea in my head for someone similar to Alfrid from The Hobbit. Perhaps, during all these ninjas coming to the world, someone from a more fantasy-like world came along. Yeah, that’d be a good concept. Rat would be a good name for him. These beliefs will be coming from D&D 5e’s Urchin Background ideals.

All people, rich or poor, deserve respect.

I help the people who help me.

We are worthy of a better life.

Alright, that works. Now onto Attributes.

Body: D10 (3)

Mind: D8 (2)

Soul: D6 (1)

Spark: D6 (1)

And talents.

Broad Talents

Evasion

Scrounging

Common Talents

Disguise

Stealth

Knives

Deep Talents

Conning Nobles

Sizing up a dire situation

And now that we have that done, we can finally move onto the next step. For questions I’m not sure on answering, I will bring my Driver into it. Runes. Runes are yet another divining technique, much like I Ching and Tarot cards. They have five different categories to pick from, though I think it’s more of an ascetic than anything else. Though, in keeping with the nature of the Runes, I’ll pick out a colored rune depending on the context.

What common friend/foe do George and Tsubasamaru have?

Rune: (Jade) Ehwaz. The idea of a centaur (The rune represents Odin and his horse, which some old painting represent as a centaur) helped me think of a common friend that they have in the form of Chiron, a Centaur from a world based upon Swords and Sandals.

What family member does George and Rat care about?

Rune: (Jade) Thurisaz. The mention of Rose (the rune means Thorn, as in every rose has its thorn) gives me the idea of making a character named Rose. Rose is George’s daughter and someone who took Rat under her wing when he came looking for food. Both of them care about her immensely.

How would Tsubasamaru suffer if George were to come to harm?

No Rune Needed: Tsubasamaru is hiding out in George’s neighbourhood from vengeful ninjas who are after him. If George were to come to harm, he might be unable to stay in his neighbourhood for long.

What would Tsubasamaru hope to gain from Rat?

No Rune Needed: His assistance in assassinating the head of his clan.

What favour did George do for Rat?

No Rune Needed: Let him stay at his house.

What personal sacrifice did Rat make for Tsubasamaru?

Rune: (Ice) Thurisaz again. Rat had to choose between Rose or Tsubasamaru when ninjas attacked, representing that erected barriers would not hold. Rose was taken into the night and was never heard from again.

Alright, I feel like I need to make a little additional Faction because these would be major characters, it seems.

Tie 2: Asymmetrical Relationship with Home Office. They have secretly infiltrated their place without their knowing.

Tie 3: Mutual Relationship: Sherry and Kark know each other as rivals.

Faction’s Agenda: They had raided a neighbourhood and kidnapped several people. For what reason is up to our heroes to find out.

Now let’s do Factional Baggage. This is their relationships with their respective factions.

Why does George hate the Taka Clan?

No Rune Needed: They kidnapped Rose and he fears they killed her.

Why does George trust the Sherry Corporation with his life?

No Rune Needed: Their boss, Sherry, was the one who gave George and Rose their home.

Why did Tsubasamaru abandon the Taka Clan and vowed to destroy it?

No Rune Needed: He believes in their goal of silencing people of their secrets is bullcrap.

Why does Tsubasamaru swear loyalty to the Home Office?

No Rune Needed: He feels like it’s time to reveal the secrets of the world to… well… the world.

Why is Rat afraid of the Taka Clan?

No Rune Needed: They destroyed his home and stole Rose from him.

Why did Rat abandon MI6?

Rune: (Ice) He wasn’t’ feeling happy with his job and he left.

And finally, a prelude. This is a little backstory for each of them of something relating to the agenda of a faction. I think it’s pretty obvious what that faction is.

George wakes up to the smell of burning wood. He comes down and notices that ninjas have invaded his town, ransacked the city and stole anyone who had laid eyes on them. They had stolen Rose from him, which left him devastated until morning.

Tsubasamaru attracted some unwanted attention by accidently leaving his signature shuriken at a local fast food place, tipping off the Taka Clan of where he was. He fought them off valiantly, but was unable to hold them off for long. He regained consciousness by morning.

Rat was dating Rose when the ninjas attacked. Tsubasamaru saved them, but soon both him and Rose were held captive and Rat realized he only had time to save one of them. He chose Tsubasamaru and watched Rose be taken off into the night.

And that’s everything. It took a looooooong while, so we’re probably going to leave this until next week. I like this system. It gave me a lot to go on for playing this game, much like the E.P.I.C. System from Solo Roleplayer.